Through Smoke and Ash
by myhandisempty
Summary: Michael used to think the worst feeling in the world was losing someone you love. He was wrong.


Michael knows loneliness better than most.

He has lived in it, allowed it to smother him, to wrap itself around him, to own him. He has spent centuries living with only himself for company before Raphael intervened. But it's not the most horrible feeling. There are worse.

Michael used to think the worst feeling in the world was losing someone you love.

He was wrong.

The worst feeling is the moment you realize that you've lost yourself. The pain comes in realizing that the two are one in the same.

_Gabriel rests on his bed, limbs spread out haphazardly across the sheets, as he has been wont to do since he first came into being. He glances up at his older brother, eyes wide in momentary surprise before he conceals it again. Michael sees nothing in that moment but his little brother, shining bright with equal parts childlike fascination and innocent mischief, and his heart is so full that he thinks it could burst._

"_Do you know what love is?" Gabriel asks him, voice almost innocent, almost without tremble, and it's really a simple enough question. But his brother is looking for a specific reaction, a specific answer, Michael knows this._

"_Of course, Gabriel," he answers, playing with Gabriel's golden hair. "I love our Father. I love my brothers. Including you." He sits next to Gabriel, lies down next to him, holds him in his arms and intertwines their limbs. Pulls him in for a soft kiss._

_Gabriel, however, isn't done. "But do you know the kind of love, the type that burns, where you would do anything for them?"_

_Michael smiles indulgently, chuckling to himself. "Why are you always so inquisitive? Yes. I do know. I feel the same way for our Father."_

_The answering smile on Gabriel's face is a little too wide._

Michael loves Gabriel—more than Raphael, more than Lucifer, and sometimes, sometimes, even more than his Father. It bursts inside of him, even now, burning his heart until it is black and ashen; unable to beat correctly.

He would do anything for Gabriel, anything at all. But the one thing his brother really, truly wants is beyond Michael's power to grant. It is a hideously painful reversal of roles. There was a time, he realizes now, when Gabriel would have given anything for Michael's affection and attention, a while when Michael thought they still had all the time in the world. Time kills everything, though. He understands that now.

Now Michael's the one left looking but not being seen, stuck between having and wanting. He never understood the feeling, not before Gabriel left, because he has always had his brother, and what's the use in wanting something that you already have? He could never figure out before why his brother had always seemed so desperate for him. It isn't until much later that Michael realizes that Gabriel never had him. Not really.

_He slashes through dissenters on the battlefield, trying valiantly to reach Lucifer through the crowd of his own brothers. The very air surrounding him tastes metallic, the smell of swords and armor and blood surrounding him until he thinks he's going to drop to his knees, but he presses on. He thinks he's almost there, has almost located his brother, can finally put an end to this madness, when he spots him out of the corner of his eye. Gabriel._

_He's like a beacon of light and warmth, even now, in the midst of all this darkness and death. Gabriel is moving quickly, parrying blow after blow, twisting and turning among three of their brothers in quick succession before Michael realizes that he's not even attacking. He's simply defending._

_His younger brother is faster, stronger, more clever than all the lesser angels surrounding him, yet he is protecting both sides from one another rather than going on the offensive, knowingly putting himself at an extreme disadvantage. Michael aches to move toward him, to defend Gabriel from the countless blades thrust at him in every second, to sweep him away from this horrible place and keep him safe forever, but doing so would only delay the end of the battle, and Michael is so weary of destruction. He lets the moment pass, as he always does, and closes in on Lucifer._

It's ridiculous to think that Gabriel is anything but safe now: nothing but an archangel's blade can truly injure him, he and Raphael certainly aren't going to harm him, and Lucifer is in the cage, until he isn't, and even then he seems to be steering clear of their youngest brother, but still.

Michael's the one that flinches every time Sam and Dean stake Gabriel in the heart.

He remembers caring for his brother, comforting words and healing touches, and he misses it, misses the easiness that was him and Gabriel. Life will never be as simple as it had been when he first held his brother in his arms and _knew _that they would belong to each other forever. Michael wants to regain that innocent belief that everything can work out in the end. He thinks now that Gabriel was never his to keep, he was never anyone's to keep.

_He never loses track of Gabriel; not really. He may not know where his brother is every second of every day, but he likes to think he could find him at a moment's notice if need be. That need grows inside of him, becoming something powerful and overwhelming, nearly driving him crazy before he does something about it._

_He goes to see Gabriel once, just once, years and years later, after the Apocalypse has already started. He's with the Winchesters, as seems to be the norm now, speaking with the younger one while Dean is off somewhere else. Michael shields himself from sight and angelic senses, achieves it through closing himself off, lets himself burn the emotions, sets them on fire like paper until only smoke and ash remain. _

_Gabriel's face is burned into him, into his skin, etched into his bones, but sometimes it's harder to hold onto that than it should be. He watches his brother carefully now, commits him to memory in a way that he never had need to before. He thinks Gabriel must know that it's him, that he's here, that if they have any sort of connection at all, then he has to know. Gabriel should just _know_ it's him. Michael runs away as Gabriel turns his eyes on him and stares. It's too much to take, this acknowledgement, to find what he's been desperately searching for._

It is Sam Winchester, of all people, to teach Michael the meaning of jealousy. He watches the young man, and the way Gabriel looks at him, full of joy and awe and _love_, if you just knew how to look.

It's almost exactly like how he used to look at Michael.

He feels something twist in his stomach, burn in his chest, sting at his eyes. Sometimes he hates emotion, hates feeling this way, sometimes even hates Gabriel for doing this, for putting this weakness inside of him. Michael buries it and buries it, creates a memorial in his heart to a brother who deserves something more, something better than Michael can give him, better than his own dirty little heart full of secrets and lies and manipulations.

He still itches to smite Sam Winchester, though.

He travels back in time, chases Anna to 1978, saves the family from her destructive choices. He arrives after Anna has killed Sam, stabbed him through with a pipe fixture, and after disposing of her and taking care of Mary's memories, he takes in the sight the young man. A dark, primal part of him is cherishing this moment, savoring the fact that although he didn't perform the act himself, the younger Winchester is crumpled on the floor, blood pouring from wound and mouth. Michael hasn't seen death up close in a long time, and really, this particular one, it feels _so good_. Yes, he gives darling little Sammy back. And it's partially because of Dean, and wanting him to say yes, needing his vessel to not hate him completely. But it's mostly for Gabriel.

_The last time Michael kisses him, he is happy. Gabriel presses himself into him, like he knows the world is ending tomorrow. He tastes alive and bright, like everything Michael is, like everything he should want, like everything he does want, like Gabriel knows him, really knows him._

_It's not enough._

_If there is one moment in his life, one single minute that Michael could keep with him forever, he knows this would be the one. It wouldn't matter if he forgot everything else, even if he remembered nothing about life, nothing at all; it simply wouldn't matter as long as he could keep this instant, lock it in his heart and throw away the key._

_Gabriel strokes his cheek, rests his forehead against Michael's. "__If there is one thing you can be sure of, it's that I'll always love you," he says. He says he'll be back soon, inhales one deep breath with his eyes closed, and then he's flying away, toward the gates, shrinking into the distance._

He didn't even realize exactly what had happened until a few years later.

When he does, Michael is bitter and grieving and angry. He blames Lucifer, he blames Gabriel, he blames his Father. But mostly, he blames himself. He never reached out, never tried to change a thing, never tried to pull his brother out of the fire. The truth hurts deeper than the lies he can sometimes believe.

Michael's last real memory of Gabriel is of him leaving Heaven. He never comes home after that.


End file.
